6 Reduce Your Screen Time Challenges To Try Today
If you’re looking for ways to reduce your screen time, here are challenges you can try in your life to begin to set better habits and become more aware of your relationship with your phone.
Need convincing that screen time is the actual worst? Check out the book The Anxious Generation by Jonathan Haidt. You’ll want to change your behavior immediately upon finishing.
I’m going to order these from least intense to most intense with the thinking that as you complete the easier challenges, you’ll be ready and convinced to move more and more to the harder ones.
One thing I strongly suggest as you try any of these is to keep a little notebook near you. Jot down how you’re feeling each day as you look at your phone less. You’ll begin to notice (if you’re anything like me) real measurable changes in your mood and mindset.
An important note about all challenges below: each one of these is recommended to try for at least two weeks and ideally for a month to see real change.
One Hour a Day
Starting with our simplest challenge, which is the “one hour a day” one. Look at your daily routine and take note of when you seem to have some down time. Do you currently occupy this down time with scrolling? Do you get distracted by your phone during this period while trying to do something productive? This may be the perfect time of day to implement your “one hour rule”. For one hour, you will not touch your phone. Put it in a different room, put it in a lockbox, turn it off if you have to. But for this one hour, you are focused fully on something else.
Don’t have something right now to take the place of screen time? Start a new hobby! Tidy up the house! Work out! Do that thing that you always say you don’t have time to do during this one hour. Track your progress for 30 days and note in your journal how you felt during this hour and what you were able to accomplish.
Screen-Free Outside Walks
Do you bring your phone with you while walking your dogs each day? Absently check your notifications while walking from your car into the grocery store? Take the opportunity while your kids are playing at the playground to do some online shopping? Then I present to you the “outside walk challenge”. This one is simple – while you are actively walking outside, don’t look at your phone. This includes:
- Watching kids at playground
- Walking your dogs
- Walking from your car into a store
- Pushing your baby in a stroller
The reason I love this challenge is because we often forget to appreciate how beautiful our world is. Being outside is meant to be the opportunity to get a breath of fresh air, feel the warmth of the sun, or smell freshly cut grass. It’s meant to be a mood booster. But scrolling through social media? Listening to podcasts? Online shopping? It ruins any opportunity to disconnect and appreciate your surroundings. What was meant to be a mood booster now feels no different than any other part of your day. So if you try this one, note in your journal what you noticed today outside that you wouldn’t have noticed if you’d been buried in your screen.
No Phones in Bed
This is actually one I wouldn’t even label a challenge but instead a hard and fast rule. We already know all the issues with phones in bed (disrupting sleep, harder to fall asleep in the first place, increased anxiety and stress right before bed). My challenge with this one is move your phone charger outside of your bedroom. When you charge your phone overnight, you’ll have to do it elsewhere. Your nightstand is considered a phone-free zone. No exceptions. If you’re laying in your bed, you do not have your phone. Instead, keep a journal on your nightstand and use this opportunity to write down 3 things that happened today that you’re grateful for.
No Phones While Eating
Another challenge I really like because the rule makes it easy to remember. While you are putting food in your mouth, no screens. This includes all meals of the day, but also SNACKING! I don’t know about you, but I had a really bad habit of mindlessly snacking while scrolling or watching YouTube. But this challenge can help one of two ways. Either you’re going to do less of the mindless scrolling because you snack a lot. OR you’re going to do less mindless snacking because you scroll a lot. Or a little bit of both! But either way, this is such a great one if you’re also looking to be more conscious of your snacking and eating habits.
It’s also a great model for kids to see and encourage more family time during meals. We have the rule of no technology at the dinner table and it’s been a game changer for us. We use the time to catch up on each other’s day and have meaningful family time that I hope will be a core memory for my kids.
No Phones Outside the Home
Here come the last 2 challenges and the 2 hardest ones. Obviously, you’ll have to pick one or the other to try and depending on your routines and schedules, you can choose which one is best for you. The first one is no phones outside your home. And it’s exactly what it sounds like. When you are not in your home, you cannot use your phone. Now obviously there are exceptions like calling, texting, maps, the very basic phone stuff. But no social media, no podcasts, no internet surfing, nothing else. Here’s why I love this. You’ll no longer have the opportunity to use your phone at:
- Restaurants
- Friend’s houses
- Family’s houses
- Cars (huge safety factor!)
- Work
- Playgrounds
- Doctor’s offices
- Public transit
All of these places are spots you really shouldn’t be focused on anything besides enjoying where you’re at. If you’re leaving your home, it’s typically to go and do something. So you already know you’re out for a reason and using your phone is only a distraction from that reason. There is nothing that can’t wait for you to get home to check it. Remember… we used to not have these devices in our pockets… and everyone got around just fine.
My other reason for this being probably the most impactful challenge is you will notice people around you. And the number one thing you’ll notice about them? They are all glued to their phones. This has been one of the most eye-opening things for me and the reason I feel so strongly about reducing my screen time, modeling it for my kids, and spreading this message. It’s borderline scary how addicted we are as a society to our phones and nothing makes it more apparent then looking up while you’re out.
If you do this one, journal about it. Note down what you noticed as you stepped out of the house today. Did you notice something you wouldn’t have or feel more focused on your friends/family? Did you also notice the widespread addiction to phones and what did you think of it?
No Phones Inside the Home
The hardest one and again one that I think you probably have to choose whether the previous challenge or this challenge is the one you want to try. For me, it was trying to the challenge of outside the home. However, because I tried the previous one, I’m now switching and trying this one too. So why cut phones inside your home?
Your home is meant to be your safe place. It is meant to be the place you feel secure, where you feel belonging. The world you create inside your four walls is completely your own. But the internet world? That is not one that can be so carefully curated. I have failed to find anyone who feels the internet is also a safe place where you feel nothing but secure and belonging.
Do you want those two worlds constantly colliding?
By bringing the internet world into your home, you’re no longer in control of your own world. You may end up feeling the most anxious, the most stressed, the most depressed, right in the spot where you should feel the complete opposite.
Now does this mean no internet at all in your home? Well, no, probably not. So here’s maybe how you can think of it:
- Absolutely no social media. No exceptions.
- If you need to online shop or look something up, do it on your computer.
- Your phone inside your home is only for calls and texts.
Journal how you feel at the end of this one especially. I would challenge that this one is truly the most life-changing, but also the hardest to implement.
Which challenge feels right for you right now? Which one are you going to try today? Let me know how it works out and I hope it changes your life the way it changed mine!
